Teen dies from electrocution after using cellphone in the bathtub

A 14-year-old girl from Lubbock, Texas, was found dead in a bathtub on Sunday from what is suspected to be electrocution from her cellphone.

Madison Coe’s family says they aren’t sure whether she was plugging it in at the time or using it plugged in. “There was a burn mark on her hand,” Coe’s grandmother, Donna O’Guinn, told CBS affiliate WAFB. “The hand that would have grabbed the phone. That was just very obvious that that’s what had happened.”

Coe had just graduated from the eighth grade and was at her father’s home in Lovington, New Mexico, when she died. The basketball and tuba player was planning to attend high school in Houston in the fall.

“This is such a tragedy that doesn’t need to happen to anyone else,” O’Guinn said. “We want something good to come out of this as awareness of not using your cell phone in the bathroom as it is plugged in and charging.”

A GoFundMe has been set up in Coe’s name to cover medical and memorial costs.

Jessica Machado is the IRL editor of the Daily Dot. Previously, she was an associate editor at Rolling Stone. Her work has been published in Elle, Vice, Salon, BuzzFeed, Guernica, Bitch, Bust, the Cut, the Awl, the Toast, among others.